PN's Marian Salzman Offers Up a View of the Way Things Will Be

Porter Novelli CMO (trendspotter, futurist, smart cookie) Marian Salzman made a whirlwhind tour of Seattle yesterday—and lived up to the hype! Starting her day on the King/Kong morning show (I love that someone let them get away with those two station names together) Salzman made her case that not only are we in a recession but that along with it, value and values are changing. Camping and soup—as both metaphors and actual acts—set the stage for the way our lives are changing. A return to nature, a return to family. When times get hard we’ll just keep putting on more soup, and inviting more people to the table. Of course it wouldn’t be local morning TV without the awkward anchor moment where the co-anchors nervously chuckle that they “need to get on Facebook.” But they're kinda right, they probably do…

Then it was on to a luncheon at Tom Douglas’ tasty Lola. The modern Greek fare was good but the company even better. More than 50 people from a broad mix of our local clients and some of our favorite local companies and non-profits attended. Like a college lecture from a professor who is clearly a lot smarter than you, it took a minute for the room to catch up with Salzman’s trend talk. She operates on a macro level—big picture, 30,000 foot stuff that most of us aren’t used to thinking about.

The economy dominated, natch, but she took the room on a journey of what to expect in the next year or two. We all know the great recession is here, but haven’t truly thought about what that means for our society and how our clients get themselves ahead of that coming curve. That’s where Salzman and reality intersect. Where local was the new global, hyperlocal is now the new local. She argues that we went global for the last few decades and we’re now returning to the cul-de-sac and neighborhood values of the 1950’s and 1960’s (though she was quick to point out that it’s the good values of those decades—family, support, generations living together/not the gender roles, lack of tolerance, checked out bliss that we will experience). We’re also collectively going to look at our history more—Lincoln, Darwin, the Great Depression. Our world is looking back in order to ground how we move ahead (and indeed part of that is that older parents or grandparents may be living with us soon). A practical, DIY attitude will prevail—crafts, home projects, knitting (hold the macramé please). And though it’s not a trend, she confirmed that technology is here to stay—love or hate it. The future holds more “edutainment”, more interactive (Twitter) real time engagement (less passive Web searching), and a greater reliance on social media. Media is the Third Place (since we’re from Seattle we also add Starbucks!)—a great escape where we can get away from this new reality (and instead just laugh at it on 30 Rock).

Lots of notes were taken and a series of questions—Who will be the new journalists? (Not yet identified, but she argues that it’s likely not anyone that's on our radar today.) Are newspapers really going away? (Hello--Seattle P-I?) Where we will get our information? (Trusted sources in our social media circles.) Will hyper-parenting and helicopter parents still persist—even through the economic downturn? (Yes…sigh.) What about broadcast? (On its way out too—at least as we know it. Look for Hulu like options coming to a TV near you.) And what about the rules of engagement for online media? (There aren’t any, just don’t be stupid about it—perhaps the best advice of the day.)

She rounded out the day with a visit to our Seattle office to record a podcast and talk to the team about the future of PR. It looks good but it will require those who will work hard and get smart—fast. The ad model can’t survive like it used to--eight months to get a commercial recorded and placed—who knows the landscape eight months from now?

It’s PR’s moment…we have about 30 seconds to grab it. And go…